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My boy Danny - The play 

"Every night Ange stands by the window looking out with the hope to see her son one last time looking up at her from across the road. Instead, every night for the past eleven months there has been a shadow standing there in his place. Desperate for answers, Ange lets the shadow in.

 

Rory is just a regular awkward teenage boy. Or at least he was until that night when it all went wrong. Desperate to tell his story and to reach out to a woman he had never met but knew so much about."

★★★★★ – Intense and compelling. Alfie delves right to the root of the ulcer which is infesting upon our society today - knife crime. He produces a play which is relatable and a brilliantly well-crafted piece of theatre with insanely good performances by all.

Setting the scene:

My boy Danny is a community project and play which tackles the alarming problem in gang knife crime and hate crime towards members of the LGBTQ + community.  

 

Over the past four years, Writer and director Alfie James has been researching and developing the project working with local organisations,  people with real life experiences and quickly gaining critical acclaim for his play. He hopes that the play will serve as a free community and educational resource raising awareness and encouraging positive talk about the growing problem.  

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My Boy Danny - The Audio play 

The project first began during the Covid 19 lockdown. Alfie James was awarded a small grant from the Arts Council England to research and develop a new project exploring gang knife crime and hate crime particularly towards the LGBTQ + community.  Working online using Zoom he worked with members of the local community in Camden,  London creating discussions and hearing people's personal recounts. These initial discussions were invaluable towards the development of the project. It brought together lots of people from across different social and ethnic backgrounds to work together to raise awareness of the growing problems locally. We then sought support from the Stonewall charity, the Ben Kinsella trust who offered great support in terms of providing specific educational resources to reinforce our learning.  

 

We then worker with a group of artists including Kitty Whitley, Ben Kingsman and Leah Patten to devise and create the audio play "My boy Danny." It was decided to create a fictional story based on what we had learnt instead of recreating a true story to remain completely sensitive towards a very highly emotional issues. The play was recorded raw and simply on Zoom and received over 500 views and critical acclaim. 

My Boy Danny - Adapting to the stage: 

Following the success of our audio play,  the Arts Council then awarded us a new small grant to then develop the play into a new devised piece for the live stage. This posed a new set of challenges particularly in the writing as well as opportunities staging wise and gave us the chance to reach a different audience. We were thrilled that Kitty, Ben and Leah joined us once again to help us further develop the project. We also welcomed Jacob Anderson, a technical and stage designer to the project to help us to bring the story to life. We then worked with the Cockpit theatre before developing our performance at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre and taking part on the Camden Fringe Festival. The responses we received from audiences and theatre reviewers was extremely positive receiving 4 and 5 star reviews.  

My Boy Danny - A new development 

Someone once said that a play is never finished. Instead it keeps evolving. That is certainly the case here. In 2024 we linked up with Pride Theatre Productions to further develop the piece with the aim of moving closer to creating a play which we can take into schools and youth groups. We also wanted to explore further the characterisation delving in more depth into their motives, bringing out the journeys of the two principle characters as well as the coming out story. We also wanted to explore some of the previous audience feedback which highlighted the need to work on the monologues within the play making them more concise. We enlisted the support from artists Sahar Awad and Luke Garner-Greene who took over the roles of Ange and Rory whilst Leah Patten returned once again as Leah. Following a series of workshops, the play was performed at The Theatre Deli, London to sell-out audiences. 

★★★★★ – “Such a powerful play requiring a very high-level performing skills…highly emotionally charged, lonely and grieving narrative. Beautifully and sensitively written and portrayed. A true masterpiece!”

★★★★★ – Sahar Awad and Luke Garner-Greene shine as two of the best character actors I’ve ever seen owed to James’ poetic, bitter-sweet, detailed writing and unique direction.

★★★★ – Every young person…every parent…every politician NEEDS to see this!

 

★★★★★ – Raw! Tense! Thought-provoking. The cast were remarkable as they took us on the journey through Alfie James phenomenal character driven play.

★★★★★ - “My Boy Danny offers a satisfying, enjoyable, emotive and intriguing theatre-fix provided by local creatives. In short, one which is well worth your attention.”

 

★★★★ - “From a victim of knife crime, myself; this play is an important piece which should be shared in schools.”

 

★★★★ - “None of the characters are innocent parties. They were real and had flaws like any one of us. We see parts of each of the characters in ourselves making it relatable and appealing.”

★★★★ - "My Boy Danny offers a satisfying, enjoyable, emotive and intriguing theatre-fix provided by local creatives. In short, one which is well worth your attention."

 

★★★★★ - “powerfully performed play which is both sensitively and poetically written. Five Stars!”

★★★★★ – Seeing this transform from an audio piece on the live stage without losing the raw intensity of the original piece is a credit to both James’ writing and the amazing cast.

★★★★★ – A heart-breaking song reflecting the ever-growing cracks breeding in our societies streets today.

The My Boy Danny Interviews

Below are a series of interviews with the cast talking about their characters, how they prepared for their roles and the challenges which they faced. 

Sahar Awad as Ange

Luke Garner-Greene as Rory

Leah Patten as Leah

Cast together 

Articles and Reviews

Below are a selection of our articles and reviews for MY BOY DANNY

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BROADWAY BABY 4-STAR REVIEW

The full 4-star review for our original Audio play by Monica Yell for www.broadwaybaby.com can be read here. 

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INTERVIEW WITH WRITER, ALFIE JAMES

A rare interview with Writer, Alfie James and Monica Yell for Broadwaybaby about MY BOY DANNY during lockdown. 

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MY THEATRE MATES

An article written for My Theatre Mates about how My boy Danny explores the growing problem of hate crime towards the LGBTQ + community. 

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LONDONPUB-THEATRES

An article about the growing problem of Hate crime and how it is explored in the play MY BOY DANNY.

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KENTISHTOWNER

An article for the Kentishtowner about the story of creating MY BOY DANNY and transferring it to the stage. 

My boy Danny tackles many key (and important) themes including:

  • Knife crime 

  • Gang culture 

  • Coming out as being Gay 

  • Guilt 

  • Hate crime towards members of the LGBTQ+ community 

  • Grief and dealing with loss

  • Acceptance 

  • Mental health 

Educational Support Materials 

During our research, we found the following articles and support materials invaluable. The Ben Kinsella Trust and Stonewall are fantastic starting points and have published a range of informative research to help. These include: 

"Communicating the impact of knife crime: A KS2 lesson plan" published by the Ben Kinsella Trust 

"The consequences of knife crime: A KS2 lesson plan" published by the Ben Kinsella Trust 

"Staying safe: A KS2 lesson plan" published by the Ben Kinsella Trust 

We are constantly improving and extending our learning support materials. In the meantime, you can find more information here:

The My boy Danny project has been kindly supported by: 

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